Daevas -I- ✔️

Chapter 9.2: Recollections

"Why do you look upon me with such an expression? Do you think me a liar?" The demon wiped his eye, not bothering to even look at Ari. "Or rather a frightful beast with teeth bathed in the blood of the innocent? Must the tiger be a beast for living off the lives of the animals it feeds from? It is living, surviving. What wrong has it committed?"

Ari looked at the demon getting visibly upset.

"Must I be such a beast because I live off the blood of others?" the demon said, this time looking at Ari. "If so, I wonder what it makes you."

"I do not look at you as a beast," Ari finally said. "Your mannerisms... and actions... are strange to me is all."

"Are they?" The demon laughed. "And the human's ways are not? Whose fault was it to look upon us as gods, raise us up high and proud? Bowed their heads in honor of their said gods? I never asked to be looked upon as one. And look as I lay on the pile of bones of said believers. Hear how their bones rattle and crack, ravaged by the ages of time. Unlike them, I am everlasting and thought once to forget that."

"Look how the walls are painted in red and the water fills this once great hall with my silent tears and anguish through the centuries. Even the sky cries for the wrongs that had been done unto me, and to us."

Ari looked at Cyrus, growing apprehensive by the moment. But like Cyrus, there was pain in his voice.

"What beasts are we compared to them?"

"The gods you speak of... " Ari said. They could not possibly have been the Khaeo's gods. They could not be Freir's or Rein's gods they pray so fervently to... could they? They could not be those gods who Nolan tried so hard to make him believe him. Not the ones who he cut the palms of his hands for and not the ones who he long since thought abandoned him.

"Tell me your name," the demon said.

"I do not want to," Ari said with so much distaste the demon sat up properly in his chair and looked at him.

"I am an elder and still you-- "

"He is young... and he was raised by humans. He does not know of our ways. Forgive him in this," Cyrus said on his behalf.

"I do not care for the excuses. If he were someone else's child, there would be little discussion. However, I am his uncle, so I have some part of the blame for his lack of... education, I suppose." The demon rose from his chair and walked down the pile of bones and into the water.

"You revere such creatures who taught you to hate yourself and to fear what you are. To shy away from your innermost desires and emotions that make us who we are. Who taught you to kill our lessers and hold them in return in such a favorable light? As if they had not enacted this upon themselves? Yet, we are the beasts?"

Ari's brows furrowed in contemplation as the red-eyed demon continued his walk towards him.

"So here you are-- lost and confused. Not knowing what to do or who to believe. Shall I tell you a secret? A secret of loss and remorse, regret and sadness." The demon dragged a finger down Ari's face before he cupped it in his cold hands. "You have someone you love dearly... a human since raised by them, I am sure. But the funny thing about love is that you come to believe it should be unconditional and unyielding, unbreakable and strong. But that is not so true, now is it?" The demon directed his question to Cyrus.

"You tried to spare him the heartache, but it is better to rip this disillusionment from him while he is so young."

"Yl-- " Cyrus tried to say, but he was cut off.

"Maybe I shall part with some truths and then you will have the willingness to tell me this name of yours. And what better truth to start with than with the one that will hurt the most."